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type_of
Base type of an object
Description
This is equivalent to base::typeof() with a few differences that
make dispatching easier:
-
The type of one-sided formulas is "quote".
-
The type of character vectors of length 1 is "string".
-
The type of special and builtin functions is "primitive".
Usage
type_of(x)
Arguments
x |
An R object. |
Life cycle
type_of() is an experimental function. Expect API changes.
Examples
type_of(10L)
# Quosures are treated as a new base type but not formulas:
type_of(quo(10L))
type_of(~10L)
# Compare to base::typeof():
typeof(quo(10L))
# Strings are treated as a new base type:
type_of(letters)
type_of(letters[[1]])
# This is a bit inconsistent with the core language tenet that data
# types are vectors. However, treating strings as a different
# scalar type is quite helpful for switching on function inputs
# since so many arguments expect strings:
switch_type("foo", character = abort("vector!"), string = "result")
# Special and builtin primitives are both treated as primitives.
# That's because it is often irrelevant which type of primitive an
# input is:
typeof(list)
typeof(`$`)
type_of(list)
type_of(`$`)